American Crossroads Leader Helped Lead Wall Street Lobbying For The Bank Bailouts, Now Falsely Assails Democrats Over Vote

One of the biggest Super PACs this election cycle, American Crossroads (along with its sister group, Crossroads GPS), is airing ads across the country assailing Democrats for “bailing out the same banks that caused the financial meltdown.” The group has launched bank-bailout themed ads against Elizabeth Warren, who in fact has been harshly critical of aspects of the bailout and played no role crafting the bailout legislation. The ads also target President Obama, criticizing him for bailouts that have increased the national debt. Crossroads spent $25 million on the ad against Obama, which is currently running in several states. As several fact-checking organizations have noted, the ad unfairly singles out Obama for the entirety of the blame for the cost of the bailout.

One problem with the bailout accusation? The president and chief executive officer of American Crossroads is Steven Law, a political operative who led a bank lobbying team in favor of the bailouts in 2008. Before he joined the Karl Rove in founding the Crossroads family of attack ad groups, Law was the general counsel for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s lobbying team.

As the markets tumbled in 2008, the Chamber led efforts to use taxpayer money to bailout some of its largest members, including AIG, J.P. Morgan Chase, CitiGroup, Bank of America. The measure, commonly referred to as the Troubled Assets Relief Program, passed in large part due to the Chamber’s aggressive lobbying.

On the disclosure form that shows the Chamber’s efforts to pass TARP — H.R. 3997/H.R. 1424, the “Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008” — Law’s name is prominently displayed. The Chamber spent over $24 million lobbying during the last three months of 2008:

After the bailouts were distributed, Law and his team successfully lobbied to kill a bill to curb TARP bailout recipients from receiving lavish bonuses. In other words, not only did Law help shovel taxpayer money to big banks, he made sure they could use that money for exorbitant bonuses.

I keep wondering at what point will reasonably intelligent Republican voters (and there must be some, especially among those white,suburban voters who increasingly decide elections) wake up and notice that the party clearly thinks they’re morons suffering from amnesia? Who wouldn’t be insulted by the fact that wealthy special interests think they’re too stupid to remember that TARP occured on Bush’s watch, before Obama was even elected? More frightening is the possibility that this assessment of voter IQ may be right on the money, and that enough Americans might literally be sufficiently brainwashed for this kind of propaganda campaign to work. Somewhere, George Orwell is giving himself a nice pat on the back with one hand while he wipes the vomit from his lips with the other.

liberalinlove

I’m all for some lawsuits against those who knowingly slandering public figures with outright lies. I’m so tired of the e-mails that circulate the falsehoods, based on hatred, fear and dis-information that is propagated by those who will benefit the most. I’m for one tired of staying up at night to; fact check, forward truth and request that the damage be undone if the person sending the information is courageous enough to stand up and explain they sent blatant lies to damage another person’s reputation. If you don’t like the politics of the person, then let’s discuss issues.

John E

Keep up the good work. This type of writing is why freedom of the press us so critical in a democracy. How can we as citizens and consumers cause the television media to pick up these stories? Until /unless that happens the lemmings (aka general public) will continue tonormally allow this type of behavior.

Republic Report is dedicated to rooting out the corruption that is so corrosive to American values. We investigate and uncover the buying and selling of politicians and of institutions entrusted with upholding the public interest. We expose how big money distorts major policy decisions – harming our economy and our people.